Surrender to Life & the Word, no amount of psychic-babblle or "energy work" will change what others easily do without our "powers and/or abilities" .Do what you want to do with magick without magick and life will teach you magick through Work.

"This river is a concentrated form of love. When we past through it, we are forever altered. That is the symbolism of baptism.If we choose to come back and live among humans, we're never the same."~ A Life of Miracles

Good night tired eyes. Soon the moon will sail on through the skygood night tired eyessoon the stars'll sing their lullaby.Rest your head and give a yawn dream your dreams and soon the sun will bring the dawn

There are angels and demons in every world wide religion; Devas; in Hinduism both Good and Evil, Angels made before humans with no fallen angels and a Godhead which created no evil; in Judaism, Angels, Spirits , Satan and Lucifer and Demons ; in Christianity.

I subscribe to this paradigm that Angels and Demons Angels are part of the cosmology of humanity; in Gnosticism and Hermetic Magick

Imho and ime there is no Satan, that is just a word for the accuser misunderstood by Christians from the Judaic beliefs. There is no Lucifer that is the term meaning Lightbringer. Angels never fell they are of a higher vibration than human alive or deceased as spirits and demons are us , too.

During an exorcism, the magickian can see the demon removed by angels and this demon when removed will take on the human form that they were known by. They often inhabit the bodies of thier own progeny parasitically living off of them.

The angels and demons are us. As we learn to love and forgive, to be merciful and to serve with compassion than the vibration of the subtle energy body ascends and we are able to fly as angels with or without wings. We inspire, exorcise, heal, protect, and teach.

We can descend in depravity giving in to substance abuse , revenge, wrath, hatred, sorrow, and all manner of negative emotions and "sins" then the ghost flies as a demon depriving the energy of their offspring and those of their "ilk".

Christ teaches in the Gnostic apocrypha that humans are and will become the angels and he comes out of his body as a legion of 12 angels; one from each of the 12 outer gates or sephiroth.

Or we can choose to do nothing to ascend or descend but die as ghosts.

Prayers are a form of evocation and humans are more capable than we imagine. We are all clairvoyant at some level and able to see in our dreamstate and most of us are able to see in projection. We are also able to evoke and can call the presence of our own angels, those of others and those which are the principle archangels.

The principle archangels; Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Auriel, as well as Samael are past lives of the Christ. We can manifest archangels from each life we live.We can be plagued by our own demons which we created by our transgressions in past lives.

It is a principle goal of Ascension Alchemy and the Emerald Tablet to Have knowledge and Communication with the Guardian Genus and to unite the Higher Self and Guardian Angel.

The magician can project from the small of the back like a serpentine wisp as the Lower Self.

The magician can project from the centre of the heart as a lion maned yellow Higher Self.

The magician can project from the crown as their guardian angel in a blue water eagle winged form.

The magician can project from the navel as their guardian demon in a red earth minotaur bull headed form.

And the magician can project from the supernal stone as the yellow HS united to the blue GA and become the emerald green ArchAngel.

This is the lesson of the Hermetic Sphinx and the legacy of all humanity to tame the demons within each of the inner gate chakras, the outer gate sephiroth and to learn the immortal universal lessons of love and forgiving to ascend as the angel. The human wakes up and they are back to reality unable to stay in this blissful state while they are "of the world". But each night is another opportunity to fly as an angel. By serving each other we are relieved of our own burdens, too.

This is beautiful philosophy (for lack of a better word!). Is this the direction of which 'initiation into hermetics' takes one? ive started reading it but it is quite a lot to take in so have not yet finished a lot of it.

Well it took me in that direction anyhoo, lol. Initiatic Magick and Hermetic Magick blend to take the mystic to the higher planes for lessons which is a goal of IIH according to Bardon. There are meditations to begin Initiatic Magick and helps in the works from Alice Bailey and Dr. Joshua David Stone. And excerpts are on this site in the child board "Life is like the River" a quote from Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse;http://forums.riverofenlightenment.com/index.php/board,54.0.html

I've seen some evidence of what you speak of. I've seen a young child with black eyes. I've seen a soldier dressed in a black uniform with black eyes but he was much stronger. I couldn't decapitate him with a chainsaw when I tried. Both had a human form. Looking into their eyes, I could tell they had descended spiritually.